Event: Playgrounds vs Submarine Channel 2012

Event: Playgrounds vs Submarine Channel 2012

We teamed up again with the amazing Playgrounds Festival for a bigger and better edition of our Motion Design Fest in Amsterdam. Date: 20 November 2012.

Watch the short impression of the event (above) by Christiaan Grammar. Or watch a series of interviews and Profiles of some of the creators shot backstage during the event and on location in the artist’s studio’s prior to Playgrounds. Snapshots on Flickr

Industrial Light and Magic: Jorik Dozy (Film/VFX)

We are very proud to have one of the leading effects companies in the world at Playgrounds vs Submarine Channel. For over thirty years Industrial Light and Magic (a division of Lucasfilm Ltd.) has set the standard for visual effects . They have created vfx for nearly 200 feature films. From the earliest creation of wholly computer-generated characters in The Abyss, Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park; to life-like distortions of the human body in Death Becomes Her and The Mask; to the startling breakthroughs in films such as Twister, Star Wars The Phantom Menace, The Perfect Storm and Pirates of the Caribbean. When you look at the top 15 worldwide box office hits of all time, Industrial Light and Magic has played a key role in 10 of them. Industrial Light and Magic continues to break new ground in visual effects.4.30 pmwww.ilm.com

Sil van der Woerd and Rutger Hauer (Film/VFX)

Creative director, writer, art director and producer Sil van der Woerd finished his fine arts study at ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in 2005. At the institute, Sil started using film and mixed new media, live action and dominant soundtracks to express his fictitious, atmospheric worlds. His short film Swim won several awards and nominations and screened worldwide. After his study in NL, Sil completed a study at the acclaimed Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood. After directing music videos for the likes of Anouk and Lolly Jane Blue he co-directed the short film Requiem 2019 with the acclaimed and ever charismatic Dutch actor Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner). Sil will present his short in Amsterdam in the company of Mr. Hauer himself.5.15 pmwww.silvanderwoerd.com

Digital Domain: Justin van der Lek & Jacqueline Makkee (Film/VFX)

Digital production company Digital Domain was founded in 1993 by film industry icon James Cameron (The Terminator, Aliens, Avatar) together with vfx supervisor and makeup artist Stan Winston (winner of four Academy Awards) and digital media executive Scott Ross (led George Lucas’ companies in the 80’s). Digital Domain has delivered innovative visuals for more than 90 movies including Titanic, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, the Transformers trilogy and TRON: Legacy. Its artists have earned multiple Academy Awards. A creative force in advertising, Digital Domain has also brought its artistry to hundreds of commercial, videogame and music video productions. Remember the virtual Tupac who performed with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg? That was Digital Domain. The company has been at the forefront of innovation for nearly two decades and is expanding its role into the co-production of feature films, the creative development of advertising and the creation of virtual performers.8.30 pm digitaldomain.com

Henry Hobson (Film/Title design)

Not too long after graduating from the Royal College of Art in London, designer and director Henry Hobson created a series of commercials for the BBC that got him on the radar of Prologue, Kyle Cooper’s studio. Hobson was “snapped up and transported out to L.A.” where he worked as a creative director and graphic designer on a series of distinctive title sequences that combined old school analogue handiwork with cutting-edge digital techniques, including Rango, The Walking Dead, Robin Hood, Fright Night and Sherlock Holmes. In 2010 Hobson left Prologue to pursue other creative avenues with a live action emphasis. He directed a viral teaser for Resistance 3, and lately titles for Snow White and The Huntsman. Hobson is currently busy working on prepping his first two feature film directing projects: Maggie, a tough emotional zombie drama with a highly original twist staring Chloe Moretz, and Caves of Steel, a sci-fi film at Fox based on a book by Isaac Asimov.12.00 amwatchthetitles.com/designers/Henry_Hobson www.henryhobson.co.uk

ManvsMachine (Motion & Title design)

Profile shot a couple of weeks prior to the event.ManvsMachine is a design and motion studio based in London, led by Tim Swift and Mike Alderson. Since opening its doors in early 2007, ManvsMachine has grown into a multi award winning, multi national team of creative specialists. They direct and produce globally acclaimed branding, commercials, animation, film and print. Their notable client list includes cable music giants MTV and VH1 as well as Nokia, Volkswagen, Toyota and Nickelodeon. Tim (a founding member of design agency Precursor) brought his design, branding and animation experience to ManvsMachine having worked for the likes of Nike and Orange. He also has an international reputation as a short filmmaker featuredin festivals including ResFest and Onedotzero. Mike, a Ravensbourne graduate, came to the studio with a Promax Gold Award already under his belt won as Head of Design at Mainframe where he also worked with major advertising and broadcast clients.11.20 am www.manvsmachine.co.uk

PepperMelon (Character design)

PepperMelon was founded in 2007 by Fernando Sarmiento and Tomás Garcia. Soon they saw their capacity to grow and put their aspirations into practice. Into the fray came Juan Molinet, alongside Martin Dasnoy and Ignacio Godoy, a group genuinely capable of capturing the creative atmosphere storming in the MelonLab and pouring it into production. The studio of PepperMelon is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the team combines the abilities of directors, animators, character designers, industrial designers, visual effects artists and writers. The studio sees no sense in restraining their potential to local borders. That’s why their name has ventured out to the world with an established international clientele, including MTV, Nickelodeon, Nike and Cartoon Network. PepperMelon says: “We’re firm believers that when the right people come together, with lots of passion and experience, extraordinary work will be the result.”2.40 pm www.peppermelon.tv

Mikey Please (Storytelling/Animation)

To become an animation director, Mikey Please went off to do a Masters at London’s Royal College of Art, funding it with commissions from people like Virgin, Rough Trade, Ninja Tune and Universal Records. There he made a short film called ‘The Eagleman Stag’, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, won a BAFTA and a bunch of other awards. Mikey then continued his commercial work with a short for Nike and directing part of the Grammy nominated album film ‘9 Types of Light’ for the Brooklyn based band, TV on the Radio. This year, he was awarded a 3-month fellowship in Tokyo. During this time, he developed the script for a new short film, ‘Martyn Myller’. At the moment he is working on a feature with Film Four and Warp Films, but luckily he has some time in his busy schedule to come to Playgrounds Festival.10.40 am www.mikeyplease.co.uk

David Wilson (Art direction/Unbridled Creativeness)

David Wilson is a regular guest at Playgrounds Festival. This is the third time in a row he comes over to The Netherlands for an artist talk and some beers. David is a London-based artist and music video director. Coming from an illustration background, David first started getting recognition for his work with his music video for Moray McLarens ‘We Got Time’ in which he was able to achieve live in-camera animation combined with live action via the renaissance of an old animation device called a Praxiniscope. Since then he has developed his music video directorial skills in ever-shifting ways; creating acclaimed videos for artists such as We Have Band, The Maccabees, Japanese Popstars, Metronomy and David Guetta. Most recently, David was responsible for creating IKEA’s latest UK TV commercial, where he brought flat-pack Swedish home furnishings to life through a variety of hand drawn, physical and CG animation effects.2 pm www.thisisdavidwilson.comWatch music videos by David Wilson on 2Pause

CIA: Operation Ajax/Cognito Comics (Storytelling)

The multiple award-winning app CIA: Operation Ajax is both an animated documentary, a spectacular interactive graphic novel, and a profound work of investigative journalism. Based on Stephen Kinzer’s book “Allthe Shah’s Men,” Operation Ajax reveals how conflicts related to the Arabic World’s ‘black gold’ started long before WWII, culminating in 1953 in the incredible but true history of the CIA plot to stage a coup of Iran’s government. In collaboration with Kinzer, Cognito Comics adapted these historical events into a cinematic reading experience in ten chapters. Supported by a full film score, the user swipes his way through subtly and functionally animated cartoons. Cognito Comics’ founder Daniel Burwen joins us in Amsterdam to present his cool iPad app and to talk about his vision.8.05 pm www.cognitocomics.com

Daniels

Profile shot after the event in the lobby of Stadsschouwburg.
The Daniels are Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. They make absurd music videos, adverts and short films. The duo is best known for music videos for the bands FM Belfast, The Shins and Foster the People as well as the viral video, ‘Dogboarding’. Kwan and Scheinert consider themselves interchangeable, which fits in with their mixture of live action and animation, and the sense of humor apparent in both their films and personae. This is what Scheinert said about their video for The Hundreds in the Hands’ ‘Pigeons’: “We have a reputation for being special effects guys, but we’re like an effects artist’s nightmare because we make things up as we go. While 3D animation is usually all about this mathematical precision of creating detailed drop shadows and back reflections, we just wanted to see if we could make a girl throw up fireworks.” We don’t think the Daniels will throw up fireworks at Playgrounds, but we can’t promise.

Antfood (creative audio)

Antfood is a creative audio studio that composes music, sound design and experiences for popular media. Their talented team of creators and producers realize audio solutions that tell stories, evoke emotion and drive campaigns. They like to work unconventionally and are in their element with squirming, analog-tape leeches, moaning coeds, screaming guitar goats, and brain-exploding psychedelia. Work by Antfood includes Good Books ‘Metamorphosis’, spots for Google, and the F5 Opening Titles (for which they teamed up with Buck). Over the years Antfood has collected several awards like the Art Director’s Club Young Guns 9 award and Best Original Music at the Ciclope International Advertising Craft Festival in Buenos Aires. Speakers at Playgrounds are Wilson Brown and Sean McGovern. Wilson is a creative director, composer and multimedia artist. Sean is vital to the management and execution of Antfood’s projects. Antfood says: “It’s always fun to rock out and get a little weird”.

Jurjen Versteeg (Motion design/titles)

Dutch motion designer Jurjen Versteeg studied Interactive Multimedia and Audiovisual Design at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. In 2009, for a school project, Versteeg created an alternative title sequence for Sean Penn’s road movie Into The Wild, which got him on the radar of motion design blogs worldwide, including Watch the Titles. For his graduation project in 2011 Versteeg focused all his energy on title design, which culminated in another fictitious title sequence, this time for a documentary about title design. With “A History Of The Title Sequence” Versteeg won the 2012 Vimeo Award in the Motion Graphics category. He recently founded his own creative studio in Rotterdam, From Form.9 pm Young Talent Talk Showwww.synple.nlwatchthetitles.com/designers/Jurjen_Versteeg

Floris Kaayk (Transmedia storytelling/VFX)

Floris Kaayk (1982) eveloped a fascination for the world of insects, evolution,technology and dark futuristic visions . These themes form the basis for his animated nature documentary The Order Electrus (2005). His second short film, Metalosis Maligna (2006) is a fictional documentary about a disease which happens to people with a medical implant in their bodies. Both films received several awards. In 2010, he finished The Origin of Creatures, in which Kaayk presents a post-apocalyptic worlds, with silent mutated body parts as residents. The Origin of Creatures won 9 festival awards and was picked as the Dutch entry for the Academy Awards 2011. His latest project called Human Birdwings tells the story of Jarno Smeets (played by Floris Kaayk). A young man who had the universal dream about flying like a bird. Bytaking advantage of the DIY revolution, he designed a haptic flapping wing-system which made it possible to fly like a bird. This very well-prepared social media-project was covered all over the world and millions of people saw the first flight of Jarno. Floris Kaayk became the first (F)lying Dutchman in the best online hoax ever. (Photo: Jelle Vermeersch)9 pm Young Talent Talk Showwww.floriskaayk.com

Job, Joris & Marieke (Animation)

Job Roggeveen, Joris Oprins and Marieke Blaauw met during their study at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. Job studied graphic design and Joris and Marieke studied product design. In 2007 they founded their studio in Utrecht. When they start a project they always work together on the concept and the design. When they have decided which technique to use, they divide the work. It’s an organic process in which they all have a share. Roughly speaking, Joris and Marieke work on the animation and storytelling and Job works on the illustrations and music. Their work varies from music videos and book illustrations to animation series and infomercials. For instance, they have worked for Top Notch, T-Mobile and KPN. Recently they made the most played music video ever (in the Netherlands) : ‘Ik neem je mee’ by Gers Pardoel.9 pm Young Talent Talk Show www.jobjorisenmarieke.nl

Screening: Forget the Film, Watch the Titles

You know what they say about first impressions…Founded in 2006, Forget the Film, Watch the Titles is a Submarine Channel project that puts the spotlight on title design for film, tv and events, giving this exciting, niche art form the attention it deserves. The website harbors a growing collection of 170+ titles for film, tv, and events made by over 100 designers. But there’s more: video interviews with title designers, Making Of features, a DVD, exhibitions, events, and screening programs.all day screening www.watchthetitles.com

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